The 2025 Obsessions That Lived Rent-Free in Singaporeans’ Heads

It’s the end of the year, which means it’s time to look back and ask one important question: what did we spend way too much time talking about in 2025?

Because in Singapore, we don’t just experience things and move on. We discuss them to death: in group chats, comment sections, and kopi catch-ups, until everyone is tired, but no one actually stops.

And yes, I've rated each topic based entirely on how unavoidable it was, how loud the discourse got, and how long it refused to die.

⭐☆☆☆☆ – Mentioned once, then we moved on

⭐⭐☆☆☆ – Everyone had a take, then forgot

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ – Hard to escape, even if you tried

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ – Group chats would not shut up

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – National-level discourse

Let’s get to it 👇

1. GE 2025 (And the Memes That Came With It)

Even if you didn’t follow politics, you followed the memes.

GE 2025 wasn’t just about policies and speeches. It was screenshots pulled out of context, reaction edits within minutes, and phrases that escaped rallies and interviews to take on lives of their own. The phrase “Look left, look right” became a format, remixed, reused, and repurposed across platforms.

People didn’t disengage, they just engaged differently. Through humour, irony, and very shareable content. Once politics became meme-able, it became impossible to ignore.

Obsession level: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

2. Sinkholes

A giant sinkhole appeared along Tanjong Katong Road, swallowed a car, and suddenly everyone became extremely alert. Photos spread, videos followed.

Then came diagrams, theories, and long threads explaining why this shouldn’t be happening in Singapore of all places. Everyone suddenly became an expert on urban planning.

When people start asking, “could this happen anywhere?”, you know the obsession has gone national. And yes, we have had other sinkholes appear before (one was even big enough to cause a tipper truck to fall in).

Obsession level: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

3. Train faults

Train faults weren’t new, but in 2025, they became content. The routine was familiar: screenshot the announcement, post it online, wait for the memes. Someone even tracked faults across the year (till Sept 2025) like it was a long-term research project.

What made it stick wasn’t the delay. It was the shared suffering. Knowing someone else was also stuck on the same platform made it weirdly bearable.

After all, nothing bonds Singaporeans faster than mutual inconvenience 🥀

Obsession level: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

4. Pickleball (and the noise complaints)

One day, pickleball was a niche sport. The next, everyone you knew was playing it. Group chats formed, courts filled up. WhatsApp statuses featured paddles. It felt wholesome, until the noise complaints started.

By mid-2025, the "pop-pop-pop" of pickleball had become a neighbourhood issue, complete with resident messages and town council involvement. Turns out even low-impact hobbies have a breaking point.

I haven’t hopped on this trend (yet). But I’ve walked past enough pickleball sessions to know this: those few seconds of "pop-pop-pop" were more than enough to test my patience.

Obsession level: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

5. SG60 (every year cannot escape one lah)

SG60 wasn’t something that hit all at once.

It crept up on us. One minute, it was a logo. Then came the announcements. Then the merch, the programmes, the teasers, the yearly National Day Parade song that all generations will have an opinion on.

Some were excited for SG60, some were tired, and most were somewhere in between.

But whether you were excited or exhausted, SG60 was happening with or without you. And in Singapore, anything that’s everywhere for long enough eventually becomes a talking point.

Obsession level: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

6. Cinemas closing down

Cinema closures didn’t feel like news, they felt personal.

Places like The Projector and Cathay weren’t just theatres; they were first dates, solo nights, and spontaneous plans that didn’t require too much thought or money. What stung wasn’t just losing cinemas, it was losing places to exist without having to justify it 😔

Obsession level: ⭐⭐☆☆☆

7. Matcha everything

At some point in 2025, matcha stopped being a drink and became a personality. Matcha lattes, desserts, ceremonial grades explained in captions longer than the posts themselves. Everyone was suddenly whisking away and clutching a cup of something unmistakably green.

Let’s be honest: it wasn’t really about taste or health. It was about the aesthetics, the curated calm, and signalling that you had your life together, even if you still ordered it with 100% sugar 🫣

Obsession level: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

8. Jellycat-like plushies

MILO, CHAGEE, and Skippy. These were just some of the brands that launched jellycat-like plushies in 2025. Labubu? Still around, just no longer alone.

Suddenly, small to medium-sized plushies were dangling off bags everywhere. Somewhere along the way, grown adults caring a lot about plushies became completely normal behaviour (protective casings included).

They were soft, overpriced, perpetually sold out, and treated with the seriousness usually reserved for tech launches. People queued, compared designs, and spent hundreds, sometimes thousands, chasing the next drop.

Maybe this wasn’t trend-chasing. Maybe it was coping: a very visible sign that 2025 was loud, exhausting, and some of us just wanted something soft within arm’s reach 🤷

Obsession level: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

A 6.3m long baleen whale carcass was found in the waters off Tanjong Pagar on 6 Sep 2025. | IMAGE: FACEBOOK/@LEE KONG CHIAN NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

9. Weird things turning up in nature

A whale carcass, catfish in a canal. Animals appearing where they absolutely should not be.

Screenshots got shared. Group chats lit up. Aunties and uncles paused their morning walks, phones out, 9x zoom engaged, because if something this weird was happening, it must be documented.

Obsession level: ⭐☆☆☆☆

10. Kpods

Kpods were a meme, until they weren’t. By mid-2025, etomidate-laced Kpods were showing up in news reports alongside traffic accidents and videos of people moving like zombies. Suddenly, Kpods weren’t just an online thing. They were a public safety conversation.

2025 had plenty of strange obsessions. This one just came with sirens.

Obsession level: ⭐⭐☆☆☆

11. Singapore qualifying for the 2027 AFC Asian Cup

When Singapore qualified for the AFC, group chats lit up almost instantly. Even people who don’t usually follow football knew something big had happened, not because of memes, but because of the way everyone was talking about it.

What made it special was how genuine it felt. There was no irony, no need to be funny first. Just disbelief, cautious optimism, and a burst of 🇸🇬 pride

Obsession Level: ⭐⭐⭐☆☆

So... what did 2025 say about us?

Honestly, I don’t think 2025 will be remembered for any single obsession. It’ll be remembered for how hard we latched onto things. The speed, the volume. The way one topic could take over every group chat, comment section, and kopi table all at once. We complained, obviously. We joked about it, and we over-analysed it. Then we did it again with the next thing.

That’s kind of how it works here. When something hits, it doesn’t just trend, it becomes everyone’s problem for a while.

So, did I miss anything? Which one took up the most space in your brain this year? And more importantly, what do you hope never becomes a national discourse again?

Be honest. You already know your answer.